The Free Security Tools & Software You Can Use for Your Online Protection

We are online and connected almost all the time. We might be shopping, relaxing or interacting with friends, paying bills, or learning a new skill. Regardless of our activity online, as long as we manage to stay protected when it comes to cyber threats we should be fine. You may already be aware of some common cyber threats, but do you have at your disposal the free security tools you can use for your online protection?

Free Online Security Tools

Password strength checker

For each online service that we’re using a password is required, therefore a short discussion about the importance of password hygiene should be in order.

Good password hygiene most common practices include, but are not limited to, selecting passwords that are not obvious, perfunctory, or common, selecting a unique password for each account, avoiding the temptation to write passwords for easy recall, and avoiding the temptation to share passwords with others for convenience.

Bad password hygiene is responsible for countless data breaches and individual account takeovers, and security administrators routinely invest time and effort to educate users about bad password hygiene and its consequences.

1. How Secure Is My Password?
2. Password Meter
3. Kaspersky Secure Password Check

All the above-mentioned are tools that can show you how strong your passwords are.

You can easily test the strength of your password just by typing it into these tools. A secure password is one of the most important steps you need to take to Stay Safe Online.

Another important password check tool you can use is the Estimating Password-Cracking Times. This tool will tell you how secure your password is. Just how many days, weeks, or years’ worth of security does an extra letter or symbol make? How does password strength change over time? The answers just might surprise you.

Data Breach Checking Tools

Data breach detection tools can be oftentimes mistaken for other types of security tools like antivirus software or even intrusion detection systems. It’s important to note that data breach detection tools take cybersecurity a step further by monitoring activity throughout an entire IT network in real-time, therefore being able to give you comprehensive visibility to the key data points your team needs to know or even begin the remediation process immediately with automated workflows that your organization pre-configures.

1. Identity Theft Checker

Powered by f-secure this is a tool specially designed to check whether your private information appears in data breaches. The email address or breach information won’t be stored, making this tool completely safe to use.

It works instantly, you just type your email address in, and the tool checks if any personal information that was tied to the email address provided was exposed in data breaches.

2. Breach Alarm

If you think that your password might’ve been breached at any given time you can actually check this with the use of Breach Alarm, a tool that allows you to check anonymously if your password has been posted online, and sign up for email notifications about future password hacks that might affect you.

3. have I been pwned?

Have I been pwned is another important tool that you can use as it has access to a large database of passwords when cross-referencing yours in order to show you if your password was involved in a data breach.

Free Tools to Scan Website Security

We know that not everything found online should be considered as sometimes websites can spread all kinds of threats.

For the purpose of making your online experience a more secure one, you could use services that are created to help you check if a website has been reported for phishing, malicious code, unwanted software, or has a poor reputation, and in this way, help you avoid it.

1. Virus Total

VirusTotal works by inspecting items by using over 70 antivirus scanners and URL/domain block listing services. The users are able to select a file from their computer and send it to VirusTotal just by using their browser. VirusTotal offers a number of file submission methods, including the primary public web interface, desktop uploaders, browser extensions, and a programmatic API. The web interface has the highest scanning priority among the publicly available submission methods. Submissions may be scripted in any programming language using the HTTP-based public API.

2. SUCURI

SUCURI is one of the most popular free website malware and security scanner that can help you quickly test for malware, blacklisting status, injected SPAM, and defacements.

3. Qualys

Qualys’s SSL Server Test is an essential tool able to scan your website for SSL/TLS misconfiguration and vulnerabilities as it can provide an in-depth analysis of your URL.

4. Quttera

Quttera checks for malware and vulnerabilities exploit by scanning your website for malicious, suspicious, or potentially suspicious files.

5. Intruder

With its powerful cloud-based vulnerability scanner Intruder is prepared to find weaknesses in an entire web application infrastructure.

Intruder saves you time by checking for Missing patches, possible Misconfigurations, Web application issues such as SQL injection & cross-site scripting, and CMS issues.

6. UpGuard

UpGuard Web Scan is an external risk assessment tool that uses publicly available information to grade.

7. SiteGuarding

SiteGuarding scans your domain for malware, website blacklisting, injected spam, defacement, and other possible threats, and is compatible with WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, osCommerce, and Bulletin.

Free Antivirus Software

You might believe that you are being careful when online and visiting reputable sites. Maybe you are only downloading from official sources like the Windows Store, or iTunes, but here’s the thing: You’re never truly protected when going online completely unprotected, therefore you still need antivirus software, as out there are all kinds of miscreants that just want nothing more than to steal and cause mayhem by getting inside your PC. It sounds scary, but because much of our lives are now conducted online, the threat is as real as ever.

1. Microsoft Defender

The free Microsoft Defender Antivirus software running on Windows 10, offers you a malware protection safety net as the free antivirus program is built into Windows and it’s turned on by default. Fortunately, this free antivirus solution will cover the basics of internet security. You should note that Windows 10 will automatically disable its own Windows Defender antivirus if you install a third-party antivirus. https://www.clamav.net.

2. ClamAV

ClamAV® is an open-source (GPL) anti-virus engine used in a variety of situations including email scanning, web scanning, and endpoint security. It provides a number of utilities including a flexible and scalable multi-threaded daemon, a command-line scanner, and an advanced tool for automatic database updates.

3. Immunet

Immunet is a free, cloud-based, community-driven antivirus application, using the ClamAV and its own engine. The software is complementary to existing antivirus software. In January 2011 Immunet was acquired by Sourcefire. The application is free of charge, although a commercial version is available.

4. Comodo

Comodo Internet Security is developed and distributed by Comodo Group, a freemium Internet security suite that includes an antivirus program, personal firewall, sandbox, host-based intrusion prevention system, and website filtering.

Free Software Updaters

1. HEIMDAL™ FREE

This is a software updater for Windows PCs. It works by automating any software updates and in this way improving your security. Heimdal™ Free keeps your vulnerable applications up to date automatically and eliminates vulnerabilities used in cyber-attacks.

2. Downloadcrew UpdateScanner

This candidate has access to one of the largest software databases on its market. Downloadcrew UpdateScanner offers both manual and automatic update solutions.

The updater remains active in the background and in your system tray – will alert you when a priority update is ready.

3. Patch My PC Home Updater

Patch My PC Home Updater is one of the more popular and most trusted software updaters in the free zone of these applications. Once installed it will scan your program library as soon as the program is initiated. Once this process is completed it will let you know without any further delays the important programs that have updates pending. With one mouse click, you can set all or some of those updates into motion.

The software has also a scheduler option allowing you to easily put together an updated list that will be taken care of automatically.

4. Glarysoft Software Update

This tool has one of the most intuitive interfaces out of all the free software updaters we tested. Glarysoft Software Update is a worthy bearer of the Glarysoft name that has been a Windows utility specialist for years now.

This tool has a huge software database to its credit which is continuously being consolidated even further through updates with regularity. Also, an extremely cool remote update option allows you to initiate updates remotely for other devices that you may own or simply manage.

5. SUMo

SUMo is great but you’ll have to upgrade to a paid version to take full advantage of any automatic updating. There are plenty of reasons to stick with the free version though; if you’re not worried about initiating manual updates this software may be just what you were looking for. One really cool perk to the SUMo software is that it can search for beta versions of software on your computer. That’s not a claim many free software updaters are able to make in full confidence.

SUMo offers the possibility of blacklisting certain programs you don’t want to come up in your list of pending updates. If you like SUMo, be sure to try out their sister program, DUMo, for driver update checks.

Free PC Cleaners & Optimizers

1. CCleaner

CCleaner was developed by Piriform and is used to clean potentially unwanted files and invalid Windows Registry entries from a computer. It was developed originally for Microsoft Windows only, but now it also has a macOS version.

2. Advanced SystemCare

Advanced SystemCare focuses on cleaning, optimizing, speeding up, and also securing your PC.

It supports the Windows OS and will help you optimize PC games. It has a larger driver database and that is the reason why it can update more than 3 million drivers.

3. Total PC Cleaner

Total PC Cleaner is basically a free clean-up tool for disk space and memory optimization. It is fully compatible with the latest Windows versions starting with Windows 10.  It has the ability to selectively remove files from System Caches, Mail Caches, Application Caches, Office Caches, Browser Caches, Downloads, and Large files.

4. Razer Cortex

This is a dedicated solution aimed at enhancing gaming and system performance at the same time. The software can be installed on Windows 10, 8, and 7.

This tool can really get your system in tip-top shape using a variety of available tweaks that will unleash the full potential of your laptop or desktop; it is also available for mobile devices. Razer Cortex will help you find new and interesting games for mobile devices also. The tool will make sure all your potential space will be used on any device it is installed. Not a single kilobyte on your hard disk will get wasted and that is how you will get more space for work and play.

5. IObit Advanced SystemCare

IObit Advanced SystemCare is easy to use and for even the newest PC user, it cleans up files and folders the user doesn’t need, neatens up the Windows registry, and repairs errors on the hard drive.

Wrapping Up…

As it is in any competitive field in the cybersecurity game the bad guys constantly try to outrun the good guys and the other way around.

Some food for thought – at the end of the day no single tool is bulletproof. One should not relax and rely on one software alone or on a single app to keep you safe as they all have their flaws, all have their vulnerabilities.

It is not a bad idea to try to think and act like a journalist – question and be suspicious about everything you receive or run into the digital world and looks slightly suspicious.

Check once, check twice check thrice may you need to do so before you act or click on it; be sure you are not engaging anything that looks fishy.

Stay on the safe side of digital life!